The Great Texas Catamaran Race is an off-shore beach catamaran race along the Texas Coast. Starting in South Padre Island and finishing in Galveston, the race will cover approximately 300 miles along the Texas coast over the Father’s Day weekend. The race will be conducted in four stages with each stage starting and ending on the beach!

Friday, May 25, 2012

Dedication of the Mike Worrell Memorial Trophy at the Great Texas Awards Ceremony

Two years ago, Mike Worrell passed away. Mike was a great inspiration to many sailors. To recognize his great contributions, the Great Texas dedicated a trophy to him in 2010. This is from the dedication at the awards ceremony in 2010.....

Presented by Steve Piche on June 19th, 2010

On behalf of the entire Great Texas Fleet, I am proud to
dedicate this new trophy for the lowest total elapsed time in the Great Texas Catamaran
Race to the memory of Mike Worrell. The
trophy will henceforth be named the Mike Worrell Memorial Trophy. Special thanks to Dennis Banks for making
this beautiful trophy.

Mike Worrell pushed the boundaries of beach catamaran
sailing and in the process created a unique form of long distance racing. The Worrell 1000 was the Mt. Everest of
catamaran sailing - a 1000 mile race up the east coast that challenged every
aspect of a sailor’s capabilities including boat handling, navigation,
endurance, and just plain guts.

Mike Worrell was an inspiration to me and many people in the
Great Texas Fleet. After competing in
the race for several years, we decided to create a mini-Worrell here in Texas,
the Great Texas Catamaran Race. Mike was
always very helpful and supportive of this race. For example, the race rules for the Great
Texas are based on those from the Worrell 1000.
Mike licensed the rules to the race for $1.

Mike always followed this race and was very proud of the
part he played in creating this race. He
always followed it on the internet.
After each race, we would always talk about how the race went. I will not have the opportunity to talk to
him this year but I am sure that he was in heaven this week looking down on
this race with a smile on his face.

Can all those people that participated in the Worrell 100
please stand for a moment.

Finally, my favorite quote by Mike Worrell that captures the
spirit of the man is his response to a question about a weather forecast on a
particularly nasty day. He responded,
“The forecast does not matter because we’re going racing!”